From the Wreckage
by mithrilxmoon
Summary: AU all human . Sometimes the only people who can save you are the ones who don't know you at all. Edward/Jasper.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Not mine, not profiting, etc.

**From the Wreckage** **1/3**

She restlessly paced behind the front desk, trying to decide which was the lesser of two evils: reading the paper for the third time that day or the tourist brochures for the third time that week. She checked her watch and irritation flared sharply when she saw that only twenty-one minutes had passed since she had last checked, barely any closer to the end of her ten-hour shift. For a moment, sharp headlights filtered through the dusty off-white blinds that hung, carelessly crooked, on the nearby window. She wished that tourist season wasn't still three months away, and then caught herself with a cross between a sigh and a groan. There was no tourist season in this town. Right. The quaint little town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the biggest attraction that filled the hotels was probably college graduation. At that thought she hastily reined in her irritation and glanced left and right, foolishly feeling that someone had caught her in the act of being a horrible mother. College. It was why she, they, had moved 5,000 miles to a place that sounded too quiet and felt too nice. Her 18-year-old son had the ambition and she had the determination. He wanted to study aerospace engineering and she wanted to make it happen, even if she had no idea what it meant. He talked about it with the glassy eyes and breathless words of someone who had a dream, one big enough that both of them felt its weight. She knew the best thing she could do as a mother was try to make it real and life-sized.

The small copper bell on the door rang out its usual artificially cheery sound and she brought out her usual smile of warmth and detachment in just the right proportions. Six years of practice made perfect.

"Hello, sir. How are you this evening?" Out of habit, she tugged the bottom of the sweater that had become slightly faded by the fifth wash.

"Fine, thank you… Noreen. I have a reservation under Hale, Jasper."

She normally slipped into a sort of programmed existence during work, not bothering to look closely at faces because no one bothered with hers. But the realization that guest number twenty-two had called her by her name, and the voice with which it had been said, made her narrow her eyes and curve her lips at the same time, an expression which she later wondered probably looked unsettling or senile. He looked to be in his early twenties, only a few years older than her son, with pale, unlined skin and a soft, honest mouth. With his tousled blond hair and lovingly worn leather jacket he stood apart from the austere hotel lobby that was even less pleasing against the night, under the sickly wash of fluorescent lights. But something in his eyes spoke of hardness and damage that she felt extended to a heart that'd had enough of innocence and idealism. Or maybe had just decided that there were no such things in one unexpectedly short and terrible moment.

"Ma'am?" She wondered how she had missed the endearing trace of a Southern accent. "Are you okay?"

"Oh! I'm sorry." She felt her cheeks warm slightly as she quickly abandoned her thoughts, afraid that he had somehow heard her intimate assessment. "May I, ah, see your ID and credit card, Mr. Hale? It's policy. You know how it is." She didn't know why she sounded apologetic; she asked it of all the guests.

"Of course." He pulled out his wallet and his ID with a practiced, indifferent flick of his wrist.

Her eye caught the flash of a gold band on his ring finger and she pushed down a surge of surprise. Somehow she hadn't imagined him settled down. As she checked him into Room 215 on the second floor, left wing, she couldn't help stealing glances at the stranger who, for some reason, piqued an almost embarrassing curiosity in her. Three and a half minutes later when she returned his cards with his room key, she decided that it was the eyes. A bright, rich amber that looked for all the world to be a color incapable of hiding secrets, but was somehow perfectly adequate for hiding his.

When she started her second early shift of the week the next morning, she caught Jasper Hale leaving, a half-hearted smile barely hanging onto his lips, looking like he needed to escape and forget something. For some reason she found herself thinking that that something was himself, alone in a dark, cold hotel room. Minutes later, she heard the unmistakable roar of a motorcycle and the squeal of impatient tires, and hoped, as much as she could hope for a man she didn't know, that he would find his distraction.

That was how it happened every morning for the next three days and she let her imagination run wild as she guessed at his story. One minute he was a rebellious, free-spirited son, running as far as he could from his neurotic, mismatched family. The next he was a jilted lover, wandering from place to place as he struggled to move on from heartache and everything that reminded him of her. At the end of the day, she knew nothing real was so romantic and so storybook, and some part of her realized that she kept to these guesses because they comforted _her_. She wanted to know that he would be all right.

By the fifth day, it had become habit for her to tilt her head towards him in the morning, no more than an acknowledgement because she felt that was as much as he could stand. She imagined that he had put up with enough of the relentless curiosity and coy concern from old women and young women dreaming of repairing a man who was beautiful and hurt. She had a mind to advise him to lose the leather jacket and motorcycle; no doubt they encouraged the storybook notions of girl saves boy, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl ride off into sunset.

"Noreen, could I ask you something?" His voice disrupted the usually silent weekday morning. No one ever spoke to her unless it was necessary. She didn't quite expect that he would be the one to break that rule.

She looked up from the Style section of the paper and saw him standing slightly rigidly with one hand tucked in his front pocket, as if he was trying to be normal for her when he wasn't sure what normal was. "Shoot."

A smile, small but honest, sprung to his lips, making him look pleasantly surprised. "Do you think two years is a long time?"

Currents of emotion tumbled over and under violently in the amber of his eyes for a short moment and then they were still. But for that single moment, she was sure she had felt them succeed at sweeping her away.

"I suppose it depends." She wanted him to believe that she took him seriously. "Two years of what?"

Suddenly, he looked as if he regretted ever asking, regretted upsetting the polite balance between them. He had made them step beyond quiet acknowledgement, into a space where they owed each other something. Something like truth or sincerity, and even if she could oblige, he wasn't sure he could.

"Two years of long shifts behind the front desk of a Best Western so my son can get his degree in aerospace engineering? Piece of cake. Two more years of this war that's killing thousands of Americans, some of them boys not a day older than my son? Too long."

She didn't know exactly what she had said that convinced him.

"Of being alone," he blurted out messily through a swift inhale and exhale.

The three words descended to the grayish, age-old carpet, heavy and aching to tell their secrets yet keeping quiet, because that's what he'd done for so long and for so many different reasons even he couldn't admit to all of them. The second hand on the clock, a stark black IKEA brand hanging on a single screw behind her, moved more forcefully than usual. She felt her mouth open and close on a reply that just wasn't good enough because what could she say that he would want to hear? For one terrifying moment, she couldn't help but feel that he had just put her in charge of his happiness. That he was stopped at a crossroad and a single word from her would jerk him right or left like a living, breathing puppet on strings.

He bit his lower lip and, even in her deliriousness, she imagined that sinister feeling of hopelessness welling in his mouth and sliding down his throat, stifling his excuses as his eyes darted to the door and back. He wasn't expecting an answer, or maybe he didn't dare wait for one. She wanted so much to protect him from disappointment, and for that fragile instant, he became as dear to her as her son.

"No one should ever be alone. Not if I can help it."

A smile meant to comfort, to reassure, felt brittle against her teeth. Then he nodded slightly, the left corner of his mouth tilting in something like gratitude, and a thick pressure lifted from her bones. He left with a last glance in her direction, leaving her with an image of clear, precious amber and the feeling that he would be all right.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Not mine, not profiting, etc.

**From the Wreckage 2/3**

Edward sat stiffly at his least favorite coffee shop on campus, shuffling absentmindedly through graded exams with his eyebrows pinched together. He had learned on his second day as an Assistant Professor that he and his stomach barely tolerated the coffee at Espresso Royale; it was watery and bland, and came nowhere close to the socially accepted concept of coffee. Yet, for the past three days, something had led him to this less than mediocre café where he grudgingly drank its less than mediocre coffee. The company of a complete stranger, which had injected a welcome sense of novelty into his carefully calibrated routine.

He had yet to figure out what part of Jasper Hale he found so fascinating. Edward was noticeably more organized than the average teaching professional, as he consistently stored appointments in a Rolodex and kept his desk uncluttered. He also rarely lost track of his priorities. But for three consecutive days, he had let Jasper Hale interrupt his mornings, pull him away from what was necessary to what was indulgent. He had sat with his papers crinkling in the wind and completely ignored, making small talk. No. Whatever words passed between them were much too honest to be so carelessly labeled. On the first day, he'd gotten the sense that whoever Jasper Hale was, he was not a man who wasted his time talking about the weather or coffee. At least, not anymore.

"Hi." Edward started a little and looked up to find Jasper standing next to the open chair with his usual smile and tilt of his head, and Edward imagined that it was easy for most people to see Jasper and mistake wary for shy.

"Hello, sit, please." He motioned with his left hand before he bunched his papers messily and pushed them to the corner. He wondered when and if they would ever get past that formality.

"Any of your students failing?" Jasper nodded towards the stack, somehow seeming more relaxed now that he was sitting down and level with Edward.

"Thankfully, no." Edward smiled at the question. "Are you questioning my abilities as a teacher?"

"Not at all." The reply, so quick and confident, made Edward wonder how Jasper already had faith in him. "I talked to –"

"Honey! Hi, I'm so glad I found you." Edward heard his wife before he saw her emerge from the throng of heavily caffeinated students. "Don't you always say you hate this place?" She bent down to place a light kiss on his lips, her perfume filling the space around him and smelling more strongly than usual.

"I'm meeting with a student." The lie formed around his tongue and left his mouth as easily as the truth, but the strangeness of it made him realize that it was the first time he'd lied to his wife. "Bella, this is Jasper. Jasper, my wife Bella."

As they shook hands he didn't know what made him feel worse, Bella's bright smile or Jasper's willingness to comply.

"I just wanted to remind you that my dad is coming tonight. Don't forget to buy the beer that he likes and _please_ don't be late." She rubbed her hands nervously against her thighs until he grabbed them and promised he wouldn't do either.

"Thank you." She leaned in for one last, lingering kiss that made him feel inexplicably self-conscious and impatient.

"Wife, huh?" Jasper turned his head to watch her walk away, face remaining as stoic as his question.

"Yes?" Edward stuttered, momentarily confused by Jasper's casual dismissal of his lie. "I mean, yes. Yeah." He cleared his throat around his obvious embarrassment and thought he saw a smirk flicker over Jasper's lips.

"How long?"

"Only six months. But it's been great. She's great." Edward groaned inwardly, wondering if his answer sounded as idiotic to Jasper as it did to him. "Are you… married?" His eyes unconsciously flitted to Jasper's left hand.

"I was." His teeth closed abruptly over the end of the second word, jaw clenching and throat moving against some aftertaste that gave the impression of acridity above anything else. It looked as if that topic of conversation was closed until Jasper began speaking again, quietly but forcefully, as if he had to physically push his words out one by one. "She was… everything. I knew it the moment we met, at a rundown bar in the outskirts of town. I couldn't believe my luck. I was twenty and she was nineteen. Her name was Alice. Both of us stood a little apart from everyone else our age. I guess we were just waiting for each other. We got married in six months. We wanted so much to start a family, but we were still in school so we figured a couple more years wouldn't make a difference. Then, you know, I enlisted and went off to Afghanistan. To fight the good fight." His laugh then was filled with things Edward didn't and imagined he wouldn't ever understand. "It was hard, but we got through it. _I_ got through it, but I came back different. I still loved her, God, I did, but _everything_ was different. I felt like I didn't know anything about my life before the war anymore, like I had been walking through water and suddenly I was thrown out and the world was colder and faster, and that was how it really was."

Jasper paused and Edward realized his hand was clenched around his mug, as if he was trying to get satisfaction from breaking something, anything. He had spoken to veterans before, gotten multiple secondhand experiences of how war changed people, and hurt for them as only an outsider could. But he'd never spoken to someone in _his_ generation, never hurt for a near stranger so thoroughly that the ache radiated into his bones and through his gut.

"So for… a while, I just wasn't ready to be a father. I thought, how I was supposed to teach my son or daughter what to believe in if I didn't even know what _I_ believed in? But Alice, she was my hope, my lighthouse when all I could see and breathe was stormy weather. I knew it was hard for her, but she hid heartache so well. She was so small and she looked so delicate, but the truth is, every inch of her was strength. She had enough fight in her for the both of us." His eyes were unfocused and Edward knew that Jasper Hale wasn't in front of him anymore; he was travelling through another time that had perhaps been difficult, but also better because Alice had been there. "Eventually, I wasn't scared and confused anymore, just guilty and ashamed. Every time she saw someone else's family, she would look at me, half resentful and half regretful. So, I tried harder. I wasn't about to lose her because I had lost just about everything else. When she finally got pregnant and I saw how much more beautiful it made her, imagined how beautiful our baby would be, I couldn't believe that _that_ was what I had been running from. And for six months, we were waking up to a life we had only dreamed of having."

Jasper's voice shook on those final few words and then disappeared entirely, letting the cacophony of faceless voices filter back into the spaces around them. Edward saw a mangled play of emotions through Jasper's eyes that had him breathing tightly between dread and anticipation. Whether it was to comfort Jasper or himself, his right hand rose to brush against the back of Jasper's left, briefly touching the cold precious metal on his ring finger. And somehow it felt strange, but also right.

"After six months of believing I would be happy again, that I could make Alice happy again, I got recalled to duty. I had two weeks to find a way to say goodbye to my wife and unborn child and make them believe I would come back alive. Alice, she begged–" His voice faltered and he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to either remember that time more clearly or forget it more thoroughly; Edward imagined that it was both. "She couldn't shake the feeling that something horrible would happen, no matter how often I promised her that I would be all right. She didn't believe we would get through it a second time. Then in the last few days, she just stopped talking about it. The war, her fear, the nightmares I knew she still had because I could always feel her tighten in my arms. She made herself look happy and I remember thinking that I didn't want her to be brave or self-sacrificing, just honest. And more than anything, I wanted her to have a little faith, because that's one thing, maybe the only thing, that gets you through a war."

Edward took one look into Jasper's eyes and knew that Jasper no longer preached or believed in what he was talking about. Knew without hearing it that, somewhere along the way, Jasper had left his faith strewn behind him on the road like useless belongings from another life too wonderful and short to keep remembering. Edward had once come close to that terrifying place and nothing relieved him more than the thought that it was far away from him now. He still had faith but Jasper had nothing. The only person he _needed_ to be there would never be. And the life he had a part in creating had gone before the world could even touch it, before he could feel its fingers curl around his. Edward felt that, more strongly than he could have ever imagined, and he sat unmoving and bound by ropes of thick emotion. He breathed heavily under the weight of empathy and heartache, and against the slightest prick of fear. At the same time, he searched foolishly for a reason why he felt so much for a man he knew so little about.

Without warning, Jasper stood up forcefully, his chair wobbling precariously on its back legs. "I should go. I need to- I have to go."

"Jasper, I–" Edward stopped pitifully short of an excuse to make him stay and watched as Jasper elbowed his way through the crowd with blind determination until he was out of sight.

"I'm sorry."

With the noise in the café his voice didn't carry farther than his clenched hands on the tabletop, and he wasn't sure if he had meant to be apologetic or sympathetic. All he knew was that he needed to find Jasper, to say something better than sorry, something that would make him feel even half as vulnerable as Jasper must have felt during their conversation. Only then would his words be just good enough.

---

He narrowed his eyes slightly when he stepped into the lobby, trying to picture Jasper walking past the sagging couch with its dusty green floral print or sitting on its edge and reading the Wall Street Journal with his elbows on his knees. With the exception of a small, round clock and an amateur still-life of chrysanthemums, the walls were bare and painted, Edward guessed some time ago, in an overly ripe shade of peach. The hotel had neither warmth nor character and he wondered if that was what Jasper had wanted or what he hated- what drove him to seek out a place filled with strangers he could meet and then forget just as easily.

He stepped up to the front desk where a woman, perhaps in her 40s, stood with a smile that was either genuine or perfected. He thought maybe a bit of both, as he traced it to the corners of her eyes.

"Good morning, Noreen. I was wondering if there's a guest here by the name of Jasper Hale. Could you be so kind as to check for me?" He had learned when he was five years old that he could get favors just by crooking his smile and sweetening his words. He was loath to use it on unsuspecting strangers, but what compelled him in that moment was the fresh memory of Jasper's lips quietly giving away the secrets that his eyes could only hide from a safe distance. Secrets, Edward imagined, that had once made Jasper grip something solid and cry without tears or control, through dry, heaving breaths that left him dizzy from too much oxygen. Edward imagined it because he could remember doing exactly that.

"Yes, there's a Jasper Hale staying here."

Her immediate reply caught Edward off-guard, as did the way her eyes lingered suspiciously on his face and the way her smile slipped just a quarter of an inch. He entertained the silly thought that she was acting like a protective mother.

"Could you tell me what room he's occupying, please? He accidentally left something with me." For the second time that day, he lied when he could've just as easily told the truth. He shifted anxiously from one foot to the other even as he remembered to keep his smile relaxed.

"Let me check." Again her gaze swept over him and Edward detected a baffling combination of wariness and curiosity. "Room 215, up those stairs and turn left."

"Thank you."

Only one thought remained as he went, two steps at a time, to a room he probably had no right to visit: he had no idea what to say when he got there.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Not mine, not profiting, etc.

**From the Wreckage 3/3**

Jasper brought his hands down on the dresser and gripped its chipped edges until the blood flow stopped and his palms were numb. His heartbeat reverberated in his head and all he could hear was its sharp, staccato drumming, reminding him that he was alive. Somewhere along the way, his teeth had drawn blood and he could taste the red, iron tang welling up slowly from a jagged little break inside his cheek. He didn't realize he was breathing through his mouth until he felt the air scraping past his teeth and lips, felt dizzy from inhaling too deeply, as if he had forgotten how much oxygen was enough.

He let his grip slacken and stumbled backwards, legs suddenly unable to support his weight as he narrowly missed the edge of the bed and sat down hard on the threadbare carpet. He brought his hands, prickling from the rush of blood, to his face and felt the cool smoothness of his wedding band against his hot cheek. He couldn't remember the last time he had taken it off. It was the final remaining, unchanging piece of what he'd had and lost. Memories didn't fade, no matter what people said. But he would never be assured that time hadn't twisted them so the fights sounded softer and the love felt surer. There was something about the weight and pressure of the unassuming ring of gold that comforted and paralyzed him all at once. He couldn't take it off even if he wanted to. As if he were stuck in the world of a five-year-old and believed that his years with Alice were stored safely inside it, impervious to the sadness that ran through him like a chronic disease.

But now something startling and new occupied his head. His conversation with Edward was on merciless replay and his hands unconsciously moved to his ears, pressing down as if that would offer him relief. Underneath his eyelids he could see the two of them sitting at the round table, slightly too small for comfort, chairs pushed back to allow room for their legs. He saw himself as a stranger whose words sounded almost contrived, stumbling out of uncertain lips. Or maybe he just wasn't used to hearing them aloud and free from the thoughts that were least bearable at night. When he still slept on one side of the bed with his left palm down on the other, wedding ring occasionally catching moonlight through the loosely closed curtains.

Those were sacred words, not meant to be uttered carelessly in front of a man he barely knew. He sighed and dug his fingers through his hair, something he always did when he gave in to honesty. He hadn't been careless, just compelled by the sincerity that he felt Edward did not offer lightly but had, for some reason, offered to him. And after two years of silence and self-imposed exile, maybe he had also been ready to take his first step in a world that had naturally moved forward while he stayed exactly where he was. It had been difficult, like walking in mud that was waist-high, pulling one leg and then the other against its heavy, downward suction. Edward had been there, quiet and unmoving except in the moment he had brought their hands together**. **It had somehow been comfortable, and strangely right. He could still feel the light heat of Edward's skin giving off a purposeful closeness he'd been missing, that couldn't be substituted with a memory.

Then, he had stopped short of what mattered most in his endeavor to catch up with the world. What was also the hardest to push past his erratic heartbeats and out of his mouth on words sturdy enough to travel across the space between their bodies. But, this time, hardest for the most unexpected reason. He had found in Edward's eyes, roiling darkly and heavily with emotion, the one thing he'd been carefully avoiding: a human connection. So he had jumped from his seat and left hastily, scared that _his_ eyes gave away what he couldn't afford just yet.

A soft knock on the door brought him out of his near-fetal position at the foot of the bed. Covering the distance in three long steps, he jerked on the doorknob and opened his mouth to send the cleaning staff away. Instead of a stout, graying woman with a slightly stooped back, he saw the pair of eyes he had just been imagining.

"Edward." His right hand tightened on the doorknob. His left went to his hair self-consciously before he stopped it.

"I just came by to… apologize." Edward shifted from one foot to the other with a grimace-smile on his lips while his eyes flitted over Jasper's face. As if he couldn't decide where to look that would be most comfortable for the both of them.

"For what?" Jasper's eyebrows scrunched together at the words he least expected to hear from a person he least expected to see. He briefly wondered if it was a hallucination.

"For, I don't know, whatever I did to make you run away." Edward raised his shoulders in a vague gesture of helplessness and embarrassment. "I've never had that effect on anyone." His half-hearted attempt at something between casual and humorous and the unconvincing line of his smile made Jasper realize that Edward felt _guilty_.

"Edward," he shook his head as a disbelieving chuckle slipped out of his mouth, "I left because… well, it wasn't because of anything you did. Really." He thought they were both better off hearing a half-truth.

"Oh." Edward's shoulders relaxed yet he still stood with a certain unease draped loosely over him, as if he were doing something he shouldn't. "I'm glad. I wanted you to know that I really… appreciated the conversation. Just in case we, you know, never see each other again." Edward didn't finish with another smile because he knew as well as Jasper that they most likely never would.

"Yeah," Jasper replied softly, "me too."

The green in Edward's eyes was so bright in that moment, so far away from demons and bloodshed, Jasper found that he couldn't back away and close the door. Instead, his body floated slightly forward, as if coaxed by a tenacious web of threads connected to Edward.

"Do you… want to come in? It's not much but it's home." He imagined that was something else he shared with Edward, a need to jest in uncomfortable situations.

"Okay." He stepped into the room hesitantly, although Jasper wanted to believe that relief had flickered in his eyes. "It certainly has that homey feel."

Jasper closed the door, hand lingering against the crack for a few extra seconds after he heard the click of the lock. He turned around to face Edward, hip resting against the dresser and arms crossed, looking back at him with his head tiled in question. Jasper knew, before he had decided to extend the invitation, that explanations would be unavoidable. He just didn't know how much of the truth he wanted to include.

"I'm travelling the country. Hoping to cross one ocean or the other eventually, revisit and explore. It's liberating. You should try it sometime."

Edward ran his eyes across the items in the room, over the walls and corners that held nothing of interest. Jasper imagined he was taking the time to decide how to define this _thing_ they had and where exactly to draw the line between curiosity and impertinence.

"I've been to my share of exotic places. That was before I met Bella, when 'time well spent' had a different meaning." Edward sounded wistful without the smallest amount of regret. It was something Jasper understood – that Edward willingly and gladly gave up what he used to love for what he loved now. "What's after Ann Arbor?"

"Montreal, maybe. I hear it's charming. I've always wanted to learn French."

They fell into a silence that was unsure yet strangely pleasant and preferable to Jasper's usual self-imposed loneliness. He had forgotten how much a room could change when it held two people instead of one. He stepped further into the room, his eyes almost fluttering shut as he imagined that he could already feel Edward's body heat.

"I should… probably get going soon." Edward's voice filtered gently, maybe shakily, through the quiet spaces.

Jasper caught his thoughts before they could head down a slippery slope, his skin tingling over how readily he had let go of his self-control. He tightened his muscles in a conscious effort to draw himself in, tighter than before, suddenly fearing the consequences of a loose end.

"Do you have a class?" The question sounded like it passed through clenched teeth. Edward looked at him then with half-startled eyes channeling a strange sort of helplessness that somehow made Jasper care infinitely less about consequences.

"I… no, not today." Edward didn't offer another reason, as if he had already forgotten that he should be leaving. He shifted his weight away from the dresser and closed the distance between them with steps that fell somewhere between hesitant and desperate.

Jasper found himself inches away from what he had tried to escape less than an hour ago. His skin was tingling again, but this time with the need to move forward and _touch_. Touch purposefully and shamelessly, because he had retracted his humanness for so long that the reasons for it felt far away now. So he did, reaching out slowly and wonderingly until his right hand fell on Edward's shoulder. His eyelids fluttered slightly, almost reflexively, at the feel of warm skin under thin cotton and his hand tightened as if he feared losing his balance.

"Jasper…" Edward swallowed visibly while his eyebrows scrunched a little in concern.

Perhaps Edward thought that he would fall apart; Jasper wasn't sure that it was far from the truth. Still, it was a welcome sort of unraveling as his hand moved again, this time traveling towards Edward's neck and up to his jaw. His fingers pressed against the strong, lean line, and his thumb moved back and forth on smoothly shaven skin. His breaths were shallow and his heart was loud against his ears, like he was twenty again and naïve about love. The rhythm of his pulse, currently thrumming against his throat, oscillated between hope and fear as he brought his eyes up to meet Edward's. In that moment, the fragile lines of uncertainty brushed insignificantly against a stronger, primal realization. That this was exactly right and _good_, even if it would only last for a single indulgent tick of time. Jasper imagined their befores and afters falling away around them, giving way to a point of unexpected convergence. Where two strangers met for an instant at a fork in the road, not quite understanding why but somehow feeling lucky that they did.

Then in the next breath, hard and quick with no room for reservation, his lips parted and sealed onto Edward's. He felt a hand clamp onto his shoulder, heel digging into the top of his chest. Neither pushing nor pulling, just holding on as Jasper angled his head more sharply to find the place where they fit most perfectly. The sliding heat and softness sent an overwhelming but pleasant ache through his gut and his left hand came up to grip the other side of Edward's face. An inch of empty space remained between their chests, like an afterthought of propriety.

Jasper pushed forward, or maybe Edward pulled back, until the sides of their legs bumped against the foot of the bed. The physical reminder of where they were made Jasper jerk his head and hands away. His lips were still damp and warm, and he had to resist the urge to touch them with trembling fingers like a schoolboy after his first kiss. As his lungs filled with tattered breaths of air, he took in the sight of Edward's heat-darkened cheekbones and kiss-swollen mouth, and was suddenly caught up in a clash of unfamiliarity and intimacy. Everything about Edward was foreign – his taste, his smell, and the way lust colored his eyes – but some part of Edward pulled at Jasper rhythmically, like a perfectly placed string that matched their pulses.

And when Jasper finally took an unhurried breath, he felt a difference. Somewhere between the early morning and now, he had lost something that he'd gotten used to. Something stubborn and heavy on his chest, like thick hardened plaster, that had lain idly between sorrow and self-forgiveness. He pushed shaking fingers through his hair and slowly, wearily slid against the foot of the bed until he sat down hard. He rested his elbows on his bent knees, forearms sticking out towards the dresser and palms face down. Then he began to talk with quiet determination, as if the words would give shape to his realization.

"It was a hold-up at the convenience store down the street. A couple of _kids_ loaded with their parents' semi-automatics and desperate for cash. They didn't mean to hurt anyone. They never do." He imagined it like he always did, masked boys with their fingers shaking against the triggers, a faceless cashier, and his Alice, one hand settled protectively on her swollen belly and the other reaching for the door. "I don't even know why Alice went that night, ten minutes before closing time. The boys hadn't expected any more customers to walk in. They'd wanted it to be quick and easy, in and out. The younger one was closest to the door. The minute she walked in, he panicked and pulled the trigger. A sixteen-year-old kid who had never used a gun before took two lives with one shot. It was easier to blame myself than to condemn him. To believe that if I had been there, she would still be alive, next to me, right now." His last few words barely rose above the silence of the room as he nearly slipped into that alternate reality. He saw Alice as she would've looked now, with everything familiar still intact but more wonderful than he could ever have remembered. He closed his eyes and, feeling light and clear-headed, let himself hear her voice bubbling up from his deepest recollections.

A brush of something against his palm made him open his eyes, a little reluctantly until he realized it was Edward's fingertips. He watched in wonder as Edward slowly slid their fingers together, palm against palm, knuckles flexing and extending so that skin shifted on skin as intimately as mouths in a kiss. His eyes widened and warmth pooled and spread from somewhere deep and forgotten in his chest. Edward's thumb brushed gently over his in a soothing, hypnotic rhythm and, for the first time since Alice's death, he let himself be comforted.

"A few months after I met Bella, she was kidnapped. He was someone I'd known in college; we had been acquaintances at most. For so long, I wondered why he did it." His fingers, still loosely entwined with Jasper's, tightened at the thought. "She came out of it… injured, hospitalized, but she was alive. That was all that really mattered."

Edward's eyes shut momentarily, jaw clenched, perhaps to keep himself from remembering too deeply for his own good. Jasper knew what that felt like, when even the surface of a bad memory was too much to relive in one breath. "You don't have to- " Jasper started, feeling uncomfortably like Edward was still trying to apologize for whatever he thought he'd done wrongly. Trying to visibly construct his empathy with his own heartache.

Edward eased his grip on Jasper's hand and he shook his head. "When the police got there, he reached for his gun and they shot him. For a while, I thought it was a quick, painless end he didn't deserve, that I hadn't even been there to see him die."

Were those heartless things to say about a man who hurt someone Edward loved? Jasper didn't know, but he sensed that Edward no longer thought that way, if only because he was content in the simple fact that Bella was now safe.

"You're one of four people who know about this." Edward smiled and Jasper felt a strange, compelling sort of light-heartedness wrapped around that truth.

"Thank you." They were two little words that often fell out of people's mouths as a thin gesture of courtesy, given easily like a smile for a stranger. Jasper used them at that moment to encompass everything he had come to feel for Edward in a few short days – admiration, compassion, and envy, but gratitude most of all, for saving Jasper from himself. Whatever tie had formed between them was enough to help him remember what faith was.

"Some things you can never forget, but I like to think we all pull ourselves from the wreckage one way or another. Come out on the other side, different maybe, but stronger and unafraid to be happy."

"Yes," was all Jasper said in response, enough to reassure Edward in return that he believed.

And because he wasn't so sure that he wouldn't feel regret, he kept his voice low as he said, "I've kept you long enough."

He stood up slowly and Edward followed. He was unaware of the total silence as his mind raced through words he might say that would sound least like a goodbye. In the end, he knew that the best he could do was honesty, pure and simple, because he felt it was what Edward wanted.

"Goodbye." His eyes stayed with Edward's in a painstaking attempt to follow every subtle, beautiful shift of emotion through the green.

"Goodbye." Edward leaned forward, hand raised to touch and lips parted. The kiss was more chaste than the first and they remained unmoving, unable to walk away even though the road had split again. Jasper searched through Edward's warmth for an answer, a reason why Edward had been the one to absolve him of his self-perceived sins.

When their mouths finally let go and Edward left without another glance, Jasper let himself be content with the conviction that there was sweetness in chaos and glory in sadness.

It's not over yet! Will be posting an epilogue at some point.


	4. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Not mine, not profiting, etc.

A/N: Thanks to my wonderful beta Caitlin.

**From the Wreckage** **3.5/Epilogue**

Noreen leaned against the front desk, holding the glossy foldout map gently with both hands. It was a world map, marked carefully with what looked like a finely pointed black sharpie—neat circles and precise letters—accompanied by a small square envelope with one lonely name on the front. Jasper. The tall man with copper hair, Edward, he had told her, had asked her to give the two items to her guest when he checked out.

"Please, it's—important," he'd said earnestly, green eyes wild and bright.

"Of course," she had replied, feeling oddly compelled by a complete stranger for the second time that week.

He'd thanked her twice with the same earnestness before walking out briskly with his head titled downward. As if, for whatever reason, he thought it best to avoid a second glance.

She was still staring intently at the map when the tinny chime of the bell pulled her attention away. She checked in the new guest with minimal concentration as she mulled over the nature of the two men's relationship. Normally, she kept a respectful distance from her guests' personal affairs—she was a professional, after all. But after the tight, distracted way Jasper had returned to the hotel, she had a feeling that he had been far from all right. That and Edward's curious coming and going, and she didn't know what to think. The combined weight of concern and frustration pressed against her temples. She wished she could find out what had happened, but she knew it was not her place to ask.

She absentmindedly picked up the map and then dropped it on the desk again as she fell into the rolling chair that squeaked under her weight. An itching restlessness began to creep down her spine as she rolled to the window and saw Jasper's motorcycle in the lot, parked hastily in a diagonal with its front wheel twisted to the right. In that moment she thought about her son Sam—he had outgrown Sammy a long time ago—and that she would never allow him to ride, let alone own, a motorcycle. Then she reminded herself with a wry smile that he rarely listened to her anyway. He'd also stopped telling her how he spent his days, although she never stopped asking. She'd convinced herself that it was normal. Children outgrew their moms too—it was a reassurance because no one was to blame, and she avoided questioning the explanation too deeply. Still, she called twice a week, sometimes during her shift and sometimes from home with the lights off and the TV muted.

She heard footsteps coming down the hallway, approaching the lobby, and her heart clenched like it did when the phone rang and she hoped it was Sam. A middle-aged man with a receding hairline and round glasses passed by without a glance in her direction and the air swooshed out of her lungs in disappointment, just like it did when she picked up the phone to find that it was not Sam, just another telemarketer. She realized that in her anticipation she had jumped up from her chair, and slowly sat back down, embarrassed even though no one had seen.

Resting her forearms on the desk, she studied the map and picked out Michigan from the shapes and lines. There was a dot where Ann Arbor should've been with an arrow pointing to it and capital letters that spelled out _you are here__._ Her lips twitched into a smile. Then she became lost in the constellations of pinpoints and strange names that overlaid the shapes of the continents, some separated by distances that she could bridge with a thumbprint. She moved her lips silently around the names of a few places in Europe and Africa before abruptly clamping them together again and shaking her head.

"Good afternoon, Noreen," said a quiet voice with a faintly detectable Southern accent.

She jumped a little in surprise and looked up to see Jasper, leather jacket slung over one shoulder, smiling differently today, as if he were finally comfortable with feeling happy. She stuttered a hello while attempting to push away the map discreetly, guilty for analyzing it so closely when its intended recipient hadn't even seen it.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," he continued with an apologetic tilt of his head, "but I'd like to check out."

"So soon?" She mentally kicked herself for the obvious disappointment she allowed to color her question.

"It's… time," he replied slowly, as if deciding that the real explanation was too long or perhaps too personal to disclose.

"You just feel it in your bones, huh?" she filled in to save them both from awkwardness.

"Something like that." His tone made her realize with some surprise that he regretted his discomfort with giving her a better reason. If only they'd had a few more early morning conversations.

"Well, before I forget," she said, moving quickly away from the dangers of _what ifs_, "your… friend, Edward, asked me to give you these."

She passed the map and the letter to Jasper, hoping that he wouldn't wonder why the former was already unfolded. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he looked at the envelope and then at the map. Something must have clicked then, because his expression softened and his lips stretched into an understanding smile.

"Thank you, Noreen," he said softly, eyes remaining on the contents in his hands for a few more seconds before sliding to her face.

She supposed there was nothing more to say, but in that fact she was content—one look into Jasper's eyes was enough to give her the closure she so strangely needed. And she would've been a fool not to notice the differences. There was nothing hard and barren left in those eyes, and whatever ugliness had stained their depths was purged now. He no longer had the wary restlessness of a man who searched endlessly for an escape. No, now she detected the tentative optimism of a man who finally remembered, without fear of disappointment, how hope felt—like every day could be a little better than the last.

As she turned to her computer to pull up his information, she found her attention drifting back to Jasper, pulled along by the irresistible impulse to understand his transformation. He had returned to the stiff, glossy sheet in his left hand and, with his right, was gently tracing the creases. His face held a certain intensity that she realized she'd seen before—when Edward had made his strange request. Carefully, knowing that Jasper could look up at any moment, she studied him a little more closely and then caught herself before she could suck in a breath too loudly. She abruptly returned to the task at hand, her fingers on the keyboard only moving half as quickly as her thoughts. She of course had no idea when Jasper and Edward met, knew nothing about their history, if any existed, but she was convinced that there was something that connected them. A thread thick enough, running deep enough, to invoke the emotions she had seen play across Jasper's face. Like fallen leaves caught in their last dance with the wind just before the first snow. There was a certain tragedy, a conscious loss of something remarkable that he could only imagine now, but also the promising anticipation of things to come.

"You're all set, Mr. Hale," she said with a final click of the mouse and a melancholy she could not prevent from settling in the pit of her stomach.

"Thank you again, Noreen," he said as he folded the map and tucked it away, along with the unopened letter, into his belongings. "And please, call me Jasper. I'd like to think we've moved past the formalities."

"Well, then, Jasper," she smiled, all the while wondering, with foolish, unguarded hope, if he meant that he would come back someday, "good luck, wherever you're going."

"The same to you," he replied as he stooped to grab his small luggage bag.

The last Noreen saw of Jasper Hale was his smile, brimming with gratitude that she had no idea she deserved, much less earned. Perhaps even more remarkable was that he looked more lovely and more familiar than she would've ever imagined.

Later, when she decided to call Sam to ask him about his day, she curiously felt the absence of a heaviness she hadn't known she'd carried until now.


End file.
